Based on the need for better lighting in Danish homes, which were mostly limited to oil lamps, the architect and engineer Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint folded a lampshade for a stoneware petroleum lamp around the year 1900. He needed a shade to diffuse the sharp light of the flame and at the same time direct the light while still keeping the paper away from the hot glass of the lamp, and so P.V. Jensen-Klint – inspired by Japanese origami – developed the cross-pleating technique, allowing the shade to have a collar/top at an angle of 90° to the straight pleats.

The pleated lamp shade in paper and plastic is still at the very heart of our 75-year-old design company Le Klint. To this day the craftsmanship of the cross pleated lamp shade is unique and a handicraft that is only mastered at Le Klints original Pleating Studio in Odense, Denmark.